


love that always gets me on my knees

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, Liverpool F.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 06:35:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4425137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> And I want more than I can get</i>
  <br/>
  <i> Just trying to, trying to, trying to forget- </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	love that always gets me on my knees

**Author's Note:**

> ngl this was a reflex reaction against "Gerrard regrets slip against Chelsea"/"It's 2015 why is Gerrard still considered a legend"/"do liverpool fans not realise he nearly went to Chelsea lol"

**Chelsea, the first time**

 

Liverpool had a shite season and he's no longer content with it. That's the short version, condensed, if you will, so that every time Steven recalls it in his memory that's what he finds, and he won't dig deeper than that because underneath it's all just scars and pain, like a barely covered hole in the wall. Maybe he's just scared of what he'll find in there.

It's plain. Somebody once said something about secrets, how you're supposed to go up in to the mountains, somewhere, carve a hole in a tree, whisper it in to the tree, cover it up with mud. Was it a tree? Was it a wall? Does a hole in the middle of the Anfield pitch serve just as well?

Regardless it's not a secret. He'd wanted out.

He'd wanted Chelsea.

Blue for red. There's something tantalizing about burning every bridge he's ever crossed, deleting every contact he had in his phone, moving to a new city, putting on a new shirt.

He doesn't do it, of course, _one more season at least,_ but that doesn't mean- that doesn't mean-

 

 

**Istanbul**

 

He thinks, _if that's how it's going to end-_

 

Steven stops thinking, after that, although of course he keeps going because he can't get his mind to stop. Of course it was like clawing his own insides out, the hysteria morphing in to more desperation until he feels his stomach trying to crawl out of his throat, and he's about to gag just at the thought of it, metallic hint of fear in his mouth already, empty, empty, empty as he tried to chase down Pirlo again. He's letting them down. He's letting everyone back home down, everyone in the stadium with a red shirt on, he can fucking see them all, their faces-

 

If the devil appeared just then he'd have sold his soul. From the present, looking back- Dudek's save, the way his heart had lurched straight through his ribcage. The giddy fucking relief of it as he tipped it away by the edge of his gloves.

Xabi's penalty. _Oh God oh God oh God please I'd do anything please please plea-_

Shevchenko's walking up to the ball now, his arms stiff by his side. Steven isn't breathing, he doesn't think it's possible to offer anything else. _God please if you let us equalize I'd walk through Liverpool with no shoes on I'd kiss my mum and buy her groceries every day for a week, a year- God please if you let Xabi score you can have my fucking soul I'll never go to Chelsea please God- if Shevchenko misses and we win the Champions League I'll- fuck- I'll be okay with not winning the league next year the next three years-_

_God, please-_

 

Shevchenko misses.

 

 

 

**Chelsea, the second time**

 

Steven thinks, _those fucking bastards._ They've burned his shirt in front of Anfield. They've chanted about his wife, his mum. They want it to be a black and white issue- he loves Liverpool, he stays. He loves glory, he goes to Chelsea.

They don't want to see it as anything more complex than signing his name on a dotted line. They don't see the fear, like a gloating cloud under every thought in his head. Or the frustration. It's not a black and white issue. It's not- pick A, or B.

At least that's what he tells himself, holed in his room with the lights off and the tv on mute, eyes getting so tired his eyeballs feels stuck in their sockets. When he opens his mouth he couldn't quite speak. The room spins on a solitary axis, residue of all the painkillers he took to stop the bloody headache.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It's me. Steven. I'm staying.”

 

 

People say he was strong to stay. Strong to suffer and sacrifice, embody loyalty the only way he knew how, _play for the name on the front of the jersey-_ He thinks back to the boy putting down the phone with shaking hands, and maybe he was never strong. There's a list of things in his head because he made a list to help figure it out, _Pros of becoming a traitor_ on one side, _Cons of becoming a traitor_ on the other.

He was just too weak to let go of everything he's ever loved, of everything that's ever loved him back.

 

 

 

**Xabi**

 

He thinks, it shouldn't hurt like this. On the scale of pain he's got 1 to 10 mapped out. There's that time playing on happy street with the kids at the estate and how the gardening fork had gone in to his big toe and he'd sweated and shook and cried all the way to the hospital and it hadn't hurt like this. He was terrified andlying in the hospital bed with his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth, afraid they'll come in and tell him it's over and he'd tried to wiggle his toes but they were all bandaged up and that fear hadn't hurt like this.

Well they could have cut it off and told him it's over, there's no football- no cups no titles no glory no _football_ \- in his future and he'll really have to concentrate in chemistry class now and hang up those new boots his mum and dad bought him for christmas and it wouldn't have _hurt like this._

 

Xabi's not saying anything and he knows why. Xabi's leaving and he knows why. It's fucking happened before, Michael, Real Madrid, _Galacticos._

“You're going to look good in white.” He says, and it's surreal, a little bit. He might as well be saying it to Michael. “It's your color.”

“White's not a color.” Xabi says. Steven feels his heart breaking, very clearly, like something out of a movie. Not like a shattered glass but something very quiet, a snap or a crack or the way a voice breaks on a single word. It's not really happening. They're saying the same lines and the same words and it's all happened before like a tired cd stuck on a single track, different song, same melody, and Xabi _gets it,_ he _understands,_ he _knows_ what Liverpool means, unlike Michael who never did, but Xabi's leaving anyway, so where does that leave him?

It leaves him alone. (never does.)

 

 

 

 

**Chelsea, the third time**

 

He thinks, I can't live with this.

 

That's not true. He couldn't live with it, but he did. Nobody ever died from losing a football match. No one ever died from not winning the league. Shevchenko's living with the missed penalty in 2005 (except he thinks, helplessly spiteful thought, that Shevchenko won the Champions league again in 2007) and so he has to live with this, the slip, the 30 minutes of falling apart that felt like it went on for 30 years.

 

Mourinho reaches out a hand to him afterwards. Steven doesn't look him in the eye to find out if it was sincere or not. He takes it, and wonders which one of them regrets it more.

 

 _Winning one league title at Liverpool is worth more than 2 or 3 at Chelsea._ Except now the question was- is winning no league titles at Liverpool worth more than 2 or 3 at Chelsea?

 

Mourinho pats him on the back, once, hard. Steven doesn't say anything.

 

What you love will kill you in the end, and so he's paid for all those reckless promises, all the times before when he's dared to hope and dream and stay and fight. And so- the debt is repaid.

 

 

 

**Liverpool**

 

He thinks, so now it's my turn _._

 

He goes to Anfield one last time before the flight. Stadiums can never be empty, really, like cathedrals can never be empty, and if he closes his eyes he can still hear the songs being sung. All the hearts beating in sync.

 _So stay,_ he thinks, _So stay here. Sit on the bench for a couple seasons and then retire. Stay._ It's not enough. He knows it's not enough. He tells it to his heart, traitorous-eternally-hopeful thing, battens it down and shuts it off. No more of this.

It takes more than he has to keep putting one foot in front of the other until he's stumbled out of the stadium and in to his car and he's leaning his forehead against the steering wheel.

He lifts his head and stares out. The steering wheel's wet. He turns the ignition on and puts his foot on the pedal, and he doesn't look in the rearview mirror.

 

 

Somewhere on Anfield there's still a man kneeling on the pitch and it's him, and it's not him, and it's the end, and it's not the end. He tries not to think about the word _deserve._ Instead there are better words, like _fate_ or _determination_ or _desire,_ all spelled out in to something that resembled Liverpool.

He casts his mind back, gathers all the memories to him like a hand of cards- his debut, the Kop singing his song, the equalizer against United, the 5-1 against United, the hat trick against Everton, the equalizer against West Ham, Olympiakos, Istanbul-

So many memories. So many Sundays, and he knows, all along, which God he'd been praying to, all this time.

He thinks about one last word. _Regret._ It's like a loose tooth he can't help prodding at, or maybe a gap where a tooth had been, and was now empty, the space alien in his mouth. He thinks it very hard. He drags up the old hurts again, but they don't hurt. He thinks again, surprised, _regret,_ and there was nothing. He thinks it again, the slip up against Chelsea- second after Manchester City-

There's nothing in his head that resounded. There's nothing but wave after wave of memories, so bright they shone like magnesium in flame. Has he won? Has he lost? What is he left with?

He thinks, _if that's how it's going to end-_

His heartbeat's steady, but somewhere in his head Xabi's laughing in the sun and telling him, _everyone bleeds the same color!_

 _Not true,_ Steven says, smug, still 11 months away from saying it in seriousness.

_What color's your blood then, Steven?_

_Obvious, isn't it?_

 

 

It was red, it was red, it was red.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry i cant help writing the same story over and over. im sorry i cant leave it alone. in my defense- [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZF8tVtf-h4) is the bloody song liverpool played at the end of Stevie's documentary. in my defense- he's happy in LA, and it's going to be okay, but not just yet.


End file.
